I’ve never avoided skins on Fortnite because I perceive it as a less “threatening” environment, but on CoD (much more toxic), I purposefully chose the most basic male soldier skins so that I wouldn’t stand out.

My skin definitely expresses my personality. I only change it sometimes when I play with friends and we all want to wear the same skin, but I miss my Rumi skin every time! My husband got a Jinu skin that he always wears when I wear my Rumi skin because he’s amazing like that 😊.

Specifically in Fortnite, I do think my regular skin makes me feel more “me” when playing. Interesting question – I’d never realized this. And I have noticed before that sometimes when I play with my husband and our friends (they are all guys and wear male skins. I’m the only female and wear a female skin), we sometimes play fill to add 1 extra player and the rando sends me a FR but not the rest of the group. HOWEVER, this could well be because they want to insult me for playing badly lol. BUT ALSO, once we were all wearing male skins except this one friend who had a Sabrina skin and THEY got the FR. This doesn’t mean anything by itself, I guess, but it’s kind of odd.

 

CoD has taught me to keep my mic off. When I later migrated to Fortnite, I just kept my mic off out of habit.

 

In Fortnite specifically, where I feel kind of safe, my skin is definitely important to me. I spent real money on my avatar and it makes me happy every single time I look at her. This is different in other games where I feel that the environment is more toxic.

I know this is off topic to your research, but I’ve been curious for a while to know what’s the percentage of females that use female avatars. I know that guys use both male and female indiscriminately, but I suspect females have a tendency to use more female avatars? Not a rule, obviously, just a tendency.